5 Slasher Franchise Movies Worth Watching

DISCLAIMER: This is not a series dedicated to proving men shouldn't cry, or to suggest ONLY women cry and are therefore inferior. The goal of this series is to dispel the pre-established (yet flawed) notion that being "manly" and being disconnected from your emotions go hand-in-hand. Even the most macho of men enjoy and even shed a tear at films, and the sooner we can admit that the sooner the concept that one sex is better than the other can go away. While the approach to these articles is one of light-hearted comedy, the emotional core is valid. While men might be more hesitant to admit it, movies often times have the potential to make us cry, for example:

"Slasher Franchise Movies"

Let's end October strong with piles of bodies as far as the eye can see. Speaking of eyes, let's pluck them out of their sockets and use them as soup crackers. I'm talking one of the base support structures of Halloween: the slasher franchise. The big names that can scare you just by their mention. The titans of titillation that act as this next generation's version of Dracula and Frankenstein (yes, the monster). We love to go to horror movies because we love to be scared. Sometimes you don't need a complicated plot or an identifiable villain, sometimes you just want your date to jump and hug you that much closer. With body counts that rival plagues and gimmicks that would make a snake oil salesman proud, I present to you the kings of calamity, the sultans of sequels, the slashers of October time. Here are my picks:

1. A Nightmare on Elm StreetYes, this movie gave us Johnny Depp, but it did a lot right as well. One of the more recent installments on this list, Freddy Krueger was a horrifying villain that you biologically couldn't run away from. The false hope afforded to the young victims in each successive sequel that they could defeat Freddy was as sweet as it was bitter. No matter what dream warrior you were, no matter what you did to Freddy in the "real world," he'd always come back. The knife-claw, the bad puns, the red striped shirt...it all came together to a name-brand of horror that got eight sequels and a reboot, if you count Freddy vs Jason in there. Which you should.As funny as the films became, there was always a thread of horror that felt right. As I said, it all stemmed from the false hope that someone could defeat him. My personal moment of sadness is in the third film of the series, where a wheelchair-bound boy named Will tries to take Freddy on. Will realizes he's in a dream and takes control by standing up and shooting electricity at Freddy. It appears that this geek who potentially is in a wheelchair due to a suicide attempt has channeled his love of dungeons and dragons into the ultimate weapon against the darkness. And then Freddy kills him. That kill just stuck with me, it was such a rollercoaster of hope and dismay.